Conventional lighting fixtures for the last century have largely been manufactured in factories employing raw materials such as steel, aluminum, glass and plastic with lighting components such as light bulbs, sockets, ballasts and wire. The processes used have resulted in the term “metal benders” as a colloquial expression to describe the traditional lighting companies that employ standard industrial processes to construct lighting fixtures by wrapping metal around conventional light bulbs. The constituent parts of conventional lighting fixtures are primarily made from sheet metal, extrusions and other raw materials such as plastics that are heavily processed in factories with die cutting, punching, forming, welding, painting and other industrial processes. During the last decade, with the rapid decline in price and rapid increase in performance, the Light Emitting Diode or ‘LED’ has reached the point where its performance exceeds all conventional light sources and its cost now rivals conventional light sources, especially where the total cost of ownership over the life of the lighting installation is considered. The properties of LEDs, combined with the miniaturization of the scale for electronics of all types has created a unique circumstance for the invention of new devices in the ceiling area of buildings that can provide for illumination and other useful functions. Furthermore, the miniaturized scale of LEDS also creates opportunities for miniaturization of lighting functions which can be combined with other systems to drive improved economics and reduced environmental impact.
Similarly, conventional HVAC systems comprise heaters, chillers, fans, ducts, dampers and vents that provide for the controlled flow of “conditioned” air within the space. The installation of these systems is usually done at the building inception, or major renovation, and these systems often remain in place through retrofit cycles of surfaces, furniture, wall treatments and floor coverings. These HVAC systems are conventionally separated from the lighting functions and are usually installed and managed by a different group of contractors and specialists that fine tune the building's HVAC automation systems to control the comfort level of spaces. Rarely do these HVAC and lighting systems cooperate, except in the relatively well known case of, so called “air handling” luminaires, which are primarily about the provision of an “exhaust path” through the luminaire into the ceiling plenum (the area above the ceiling tiles) where air can eventually be recycled, or vented, from the space through a hidden HVAC inlet duct. These passive systems fail to provide much more functionality than a convenient exhaust ventilation path within the space and are far from automated.
There is therefore a real need to consider how the miniaturization of lighting functions can be combined with suitable hardware structures into so called “service nodes” that can exist in the ceiling plane that can provide multiple functions such as lighting and HVAC that can optionally be combined with sensing and response feedback to integrated control systems.
There is therefore also a need for improvements in HVAC zone control, and for HVAC functions that can be used without requiring high voltage, that can provide multiple functions such as lighting and HVAC that can optionally be combined with sensing and response feedback to integrated control systems.